As Vernelle was leaving, she said, “Hon, I’ll see if I can scare you up some more newspapers. I hate to think of you going into that courtroom tomorrow without a clue what’s going on. It’s like you’ve been living on Mars or something. Is there anything else I can get you?”
I suggested a gin and tonic, but she said the coffee shop where they got their food didn’t have a liquor license. But a few minutes later, she kindly appeared with a cold beer—from her dad’s office refrigerator, she said—and a pile of newspapers from the last week—some more copies of the Midway Driller, one of the Fresno Bee and one of the New York Times.
I laughed when I saw the latter. “The New York Times? I can’t imagine there’s much about this Hollywood gossip stuff in an east coast newspaper.”
Vernelle gave me a look of pure pity. “Oh, hon, this is news all over the place. There’s a guy staying here from the Times of London. He’s got the room right next to Harry Reasoner. I just love his accent.”
“Harry Reasoner?” My whole body went cold. A National TV news anchor. Everybody I’d ever met was going to know about this. Including my damned family.
The global fervor over poor Alistair’s mysterious demise began to make sense to me as I read the papers and put together the saga of the Gorgon’s descent on the town of Taft. The Driller reported that soon after her arrival and subsequent examination of her son’s body, the Gorgon checked into the Budget Motel and busied herself with the telephone, contacting high profile gossip columnists, the major television networks and most large circulation newspapers—as well as rousing from bed the editor of the Driller.
She informed them all she would hold a press conference at noon the next day.
And at that precise hour, in the parking lot of the Budget Motel, Mrs. McTigh announced that her son, Alistair Milbourne, was the victim of homicide—and that further public speculation about suicide would be considered libelous, because “no one in her family has suicidal tendencies.”
She then stunned the multitude by naming Sam Calhoun the perpetrator, as well as calling Delia Kent “a harlot” who had “seduced Alistair and destroyed his promising career as a journalist.” She also repeated her accusation that Mr. Krikorian and all the town’s public servants suffered from intellectual disabilities.
Mr. Krikorian had later explained to the Driller reporter that he could not call an inquest until he’d read all the data provided in the depositions, which had just arrived via courier from an L.A. court reporting firm.
But this apparently had not held any sway with the Gorgon, who declared it a “travesty” that “those murderers” had been allowed to give testimony in private in Los Angeles rather than “face the music” at a public inquest.
From a much-folded Fresno Bee dated a couple of days later, I learned that after the Gorgon’s performance—which apparently had made for some spectacular infotainment on TV screens across the globe—she had been approached by a Fresno lawyer of some renown, one Phantly Roy Bean, who claimed to be descended from the legendary pioneer, Judge Roy Bean.
The contemporary Mr. Bean had proceeded to do battle with the studio lawyers and won—persuading a local judge to grant the citizenry of Taft a public inquest to decide the exact cause of Mr. Milbourne’s death—although he declined the request for a juried verdict, given the impossibility of finding an “untainted” jury pool.
I turned to the copy of The New York Times. On page one, next to Alistair’s graduation portrait from Groton, was a photograph of a weasely-faced man in a cowboy hat, identified as Phantly Roy Bean, Esq. The Times gave a recap, in more impressive prose, of what I’d just read in the Bee and the Driller. It seemed the Gorgon and Mr. Bean had pulled off one of the most spectacular publicity campaigns in history—all for the purpose of proving Alistair had been the victim of some celebrity-perpetrated foul play—and not a run-of-the-mill suicide, or an even more mundane drug overdose.
Alistair had always hoped to be famous some day. I wondered if he was secretly enjoying this drama from the Great Beyond.
I changed into my PJs and was about to crawl into bed when I realized nobody had told me what was to be done with Pandora while her mother and nanny were required at the inquest tomorrow, so I went to bed fearing I’d have to attend the inquest with the poor child in tow.
But I was surprised and pleased when, at eight in the morning, Vernelle appeared at my door with a petite blonde woman and two little girls in tow. She introduced the woman as the mayor’s wife, who had come to invite Pandora to spend the day at their home. The little girls were charming, and Pandora went off happily with the first playmates she’d had in a month, just before the desk clerk rang to say the limo was waiting to take us to the inquest.
The elders of Taft had decided the inquest/media circus should be held in the largest venue available—the auditorium of Taft’s rather handsome art deco high school. By the time we arrived in a studio-supplied limousine, the entire street was blocked with crowds of reporters, camera crews, looky-loos, paparazzi, and assorted celebrity stalkers. It took ten cops—some borrowed from the nearby metropolis of Bakersfield—to push the crowd back far enough to allow our taxi to deposit us at the curb.
As we emerged, the cameras swarmed around us like giant, one-eyed insects.
The police managed to keep them from doing us physical harm, but the words they shouted packed a punch. The entire crowd apparently believed Alistair had been murdered, and accusations seemed to be evenly split between Delia and Sam as possible perpetrators. A few even shouted “the nanny did it.”
We were all pretty shaken up by the time we made it inside.
Then I saw the Gorgon.
I spotted her in the front row of the high-ceilinged auditorium, sitting with her lawyers. I recognized her from the picture Alistair carried in his wallet, although seeing her in person was a shock. I’d expected the woman who brought Alistair Milbourne into the world to be elegantly buttoned into Chanel and roped in pearls. But this person wore a shabby rayon dress—a size too small and a decade out of date. With her dyed hair done up in the tightly pincurled style of the late 1940s, she looked like an aging Betty Grable on the skids.
She obviously knew who I was, and after a hard, cold appraisal, averted her eyes with an expression of disgust. Next to her, a slimy man with a bad comb-over put a hand on her arm in reassurance.
Phantly Roy Bean, sans hat. I hated him already.
When Sam made his entrance, flanked by his personal lawyers, the Gorgon gave him a stare so deadly I understood why Alistair had nicknamed her for the mythical creature whose gaze turned men to stone. Even tough-guy Sam looked intimidated.
Delia followed, looking every inch a movie star in a Pierre Cardin suit and matching hat. The Gorgon gave another of her icy stares.
But the cold looks weren’t only coming from the Gorgon. A lot of people in the audience looked at us with open hostility. Especially Sam. In spite of what Vernelle said about “everybody she knew” thinking Sam was a murderer, I hadn’t really believed the general public could be that stupid. After all, Sam had no motive. As far as I knew he’d never even bothered to speak to Alistair.
But as witnesses began to give testimony, I realized there was a lot I didn’t know.
One of the forensics investigators testified Alistair had been hit in the face—several times and with considerable force—within a few hours of his demise. He said a delayed reaction to the blows might have been what caused Alistair’s death. He also mentioned the small round wound at the back of the head that Vernelle had spoken of.
But he got the whole courtroom’s attention when he talked about the blood—Alistair’s type—and other evidence of a violent confrontation they had found on the walkway between Alistair’s room and Delia’s.
Why Alistair’s blood might have been on the walkway explained when another witness, one of the motel maids, testified she saw Alistair and Sam engaged in a scuffle that night around eight PM on the pathway between Sam’s room and Delia’s. She said she heard Sam shout something at Alistair about “fighting with a man for a change.”
My heart gave a thunk.
Now I knew why Alistair looked as if he’d lost a fight when he came to my room later. He had. But it wasn’t Delia who had beat him up, but Sam.
And that was my fault.
The two would have crossed paths when I summoned Sam to stop the dust-up between Alistair and Delia. Alistair must have been leaving Delia’s room just as Sam came along the path. Sam being Sam, he certainly would have confronted Alistair with what I’d told him on the phone. And was very likely to have resorted to violence. Punching people—on screen and off—was pretty much Sam’s solution to everything.
I tried to tell myself I hadn’t been wrong to phone Sam. The Delia-Alistair fight had sounded bad and I didn’t want Delia hurt. Or Pandora traumatized.
Still, I felt awful.
Of course Phantly Roy Bean pounced on the whole fight thing, since it made Sam look pretty guilty—of manslaughter, at least—especially since Sam had neglected to inform the police about this bout of fisticuffs during his initial questioning.
I stole a glance at Sam, who did not look comfortable. A sheen of sweat glistened on his tanned forehead.
Of course, everybody was beginning to perspire at that point, since the crowd and the heat of Taft in July had quickly defeated the creaky air-conditioning. As the morning wore on, my own sweat began to turn my panty hose into a torture device, especially around my bruised shin.
Mr. Bean called witness after witness to testify about the “strained relationship” between Alistair and Sam. He even tried to imply that Sam might have gone to Delia’s room a couple of hours after the walkway punch-fest, to finish the job—maybe with a round, blunt object.
Deliberate, pre-meditated murder.
Mr. Bean’s arguments were pretty persuasive. I realized with a chill that Sam could easily have been killing Alistair while I was asleep only a few feet away. Sam had shown no interest in Alistair, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have squashed him like a bug if he got in his way.
Mr. Bean’s accusations weren’t reserved for Sam. As the Gorgon’s lawyer, Mr. Bean only wanted to prove a killing had been committed, not designate a perpetrator. So he steered suspicion Delia’s way as well.
He suggested that, upon finding Alistair in her room in the middle of the night, Delia might have bonked him over the head, perhaps with the lamp which had been found in pieces on the floor and had traces of Alistair’s blood type on the shards.
Or, since Delia’s only alibi for the time of death was Sam, he asked if perhaps the two hadn’t been head-bonking co-conspirators.
I let that roll around in my brain for a few minutes. I suppose it could have happened. Alistair had been making Delia’s life pretty miserable. If he’d been threatening to tell Sir Thomas, Delia might have snapped. But she was so tiny. It was hard to believe she could kill a man with the pieces of a broken lamp.
Besides, if Delia was guilty, her anger toward me made no sense. And her rage was escalating. She turned and gave me a deadly look—letting me know she thought if anybody was a head-bonker, it was me.
And beyond her, on the other side of the aisle, I could see the Gorgon, staring at us both, no doubt wishing she could truly turn us both to stone.
I almost felt sorry for her.